Wakefield to Batley 16/02/19

7.1 miles, via Westgate End, New Scarborough, Alverthorpe, Kirkhamgate, West Ardsley, 

 Soothill, and Batley Mill. 

The Sun continues to shine down unseasonably as we finally land at the end of my long break away from work, and as no social plans have been made for this weekend, getting in a bonus round of walking seems wise, especially as for the first time since before August Bank Holiday weekend last year, we have Northern Trains running a full slate of services having finally settled their beef with the RMT with an entirely predictable agreement to not downgrade the status of conductors, which will hopefully make my walking plans for 2019 much easier to complete. Not that I'll be using their services for any part of today's trip, as all my rides will come courtesy of TPE and LNER (no, not that one) and I don't get many opportunities to ride the King's Cross express as a local service so I'll take it when it comes, landing me at Westgate station at 10.05am, and setting off towrdas the last route to bring me into this town, but shifting down Back Lane to give me a slightly different perspective as we pass between the snazzy Unitarian chapel and the Orangery, a very disused arts centre. Then we pass under the elevated platforms of the station and get a perspective on it that show up more of its original Victorian form, of which so little remains above after two redevelopments in the last 50 years, and then it's on into the shadow of the walls of HMP Wakefield, the more contemporary end of it, where the CCTV surely observes me passing as I wave my camera about before we can emerge onto Westgate End, by the prison's tied houses and set off west with the A642 once again. However we  get a different set of views by pacing in front of the terraces of Morton Parade, with Ings Beck running in a deep channel before them to create surprising waterfront living in the heart of the city, and the path really ought to continue on past Plumpton Terrace too, but it ruins into a vacant lot so we have to double back a bit to regain the roadside and join Alverthorpe Road as it peels off by St Michael's church and the snooker hall.

Wakefield to Morley 15/02/19

8.6 miles, via Kirkgate, St John's, Wrenthorpe, Carr Gate, East Ardsley, Black Gates, 
 Tingley, Birks, Morley Top, and Morley Hole.

Take a day out of my schedule when Thursday of my bonus week comes along, because there's a lot of housework that needs attention after too many days of it getting neglected whilst I was elsewhere, and during my rest day, the weather seems to have settled into another of those sessions of unseasonal warmth that a friend of mine calls 'False Spring', giving you the impression that winter has ended early when it will soon return as a month or more of it still remains to go. Nonetheless, sunshine and blue skies abound as we return to Wakefield to complete the final leg of the local triangle that I'd planned for this week, arriving later than planned as my train needed a repair job before it set off for Kirkgate station, and we don't get off the platforms until after 10.20 am, because this place still suffers the problem of having to walk an ungodly distance to get off it when arriving on a southbound train. So north-westwards and homeward will be the order of the day, pacing off up Monk Street among the many flats blocks on a course for the town centre, still noting that the building that we have to walk under by the A61 island is still derelict, but the subway down through the roundabout to Kirkgate proper has gone and we can now burn across it at street level, a welcome development to make the station seem that bit less isolated and unfriendly. The east end of the town centre arrives as we pace up Kirkgate, among some of the more low rent stores of the town, in that shadow of that trio of residential tower blocks with their stepped sides and pitched roofs that are a bit of a local design classic, shifting away from the parades of eateries and taverns as we join Westmorland Street and head up towards the open public square at the junction of Union Street and Bull Ring, pacing along with the spire of the cathedral looming large over the rooftops to the south. Northgate itself will be our route out of town, just to the north of the Town and County Halls, which both peek above the roofs of the diminishing shops and offices along this lane, which gradually turn to runs of imposing townhouses as the city centre ends and we settle onto the A61 as we shift through the Victorian suburbia and meet the rather upscale district of St John's.

Dewsbury to Wakefield 13/02/19

6.8 miles, via Earlsheaton, Chickenley, Ossett, Roundwood, Borough Corner, 
 Westgate Common and Westgate End. 

The second day of local strolling in the bonus week off work takes us back to Dewsbury by hopping the local train for a 9.40am start, before the day has started to really warm through so opening steps will be feeling a touch chilly, and the legs might take a while to get the muscles feeling loose as after two plus weeks of doing really very little exercise, the calves are feeling tight and sore and this week will prove useful for getting them back in order as much as my brain needs its headspace illuminated. Onward, then, across the Ring Road from the station, and down Bond Street, noting that Dewsbury is a fine town for landmark buildings on acute corner ends, descending down to cross Northgate, where the shops seem rather quiet at this time of the morning, and proceed on over the old Market Place, avoiding the charity panhandlers as we make our way over to the Town Hall square, home to the infamous chundering statue, with the Town Hall itself looming large above, giving Morley a contender in the 'Grand Edifice in Town that's Really Too Small for it' stakes. Meet the bottom of Wakefield Old Road and ascend up it to the Ring Road, carrying the impression of the town that existed before it was extensively bypassed, and set the trajectory off to the east as Wakefield Road sets off uphill, at a slightly friendlier pitch than Leeds Road, passing over the Kirklees Way route and the lost railway tunnel as it rises above the old Ridings Colliery site and past various derelicts and houses that suggest an age when there was more activity by the sides of this lane, which we split off from as the A638 doesn't offer the best route on to Wakefield. Shift on to High Road as it rises over the woods that conceal a lost corner of old Earlsheaton, including its lost parish church, and note that the other side of the road has brought up the contemporary villas with a view for looking towards Thornhill and across Kirklees district, reaching the top of the hill that has the walkable railway tunnel running beneath it, past the Park Inn and the former non-conformist chapel to follow Town Street past the village green and the Spangled Bull(!?) at the heart of Earlsheaton village.

Morley to Dewsbury 12/02/19

5.1 miles, via Birks, Tingley Common, Woodkirk, Chidswell, Shaw Cross, and Eastborough.

The 2019 season gets underway, later than I'd intended but earlier than expected after the recent unfortunate turns of events, and we'll start my eighth season of walking by staying close to home, as a look at my cumulative map of all my walking years has shown up rather too many blank spaces to the south of Morley, places that I'd thought I'd seen in detail over the years, but it turns out I hadn't, so doing that during an extra week off work seems like absolutely the best thing to do. We could have gotten an earlier start but the appeal of a lie in was strong, and thus we don't get to the start line at Morley Town Hall, by the Metro sign at the top of the pedestrianised run of Queen Street until 10.20am, with the day still feeling glum and chill as we head down the route south, immediately making note of  Beryl Burton Gardens, off to the west side, having noted correctly her cycling prowess and Yorkshire status when I passed through Knaresborough in 2017, but failed to note that she only rode from that town, and that she was actually a daughter of this borough. That puts her in the same bracket of local notability as former PM HH Asquith, and also Ernie Wise whose statue we'll also pass as we make out of the town centre to South Queen Street, past the New Pavilion theatre and the back of St Pauls church, before meeting the High Street - Bridge Street island where the railway viaduct used to pass overhead on the run into Morley Top station, and then we press on through the district of town that amusingly goes by the name of Birks before running past the bus terminus and the buildings of Tingley Mill, that have finally been given the clean up and residential makeover that they've been due for a long damn time. Cross Bradford Road and make out of town with suburbia for company as the A6029 Rein Road take us out over the M62, teasing views over Kirklees district as we go, passing the Woodkirk academy and grazing the edge of the estates of Tingley Common before we meet the A653 Dewsbury Road, which will carry us on our way for most of this morning's trip, joining its south-westwards course past the Bulls Head and down hill as we move into the shadow of the former railway embankments of the GNR to the north of the former Woodkirk station. 

Out of The Dark Season & Onwards!

Don the New Togs

for Season #8!

Having returned home to Morley after Dad's funeral, and having steeled myself to return to work after two weeks absence, I checked my work e-mail on Sunday evening and received an unexpected piece of good news, finding that I had been granted an additional week of compassionate leave by my department mangers at the hospital as half of the time that I was away was pre-booked annual leave, and they'd figured it polite to grant me the extra time off. For this I am massively grateful, for I might moan about my bosses in my line of work (who doesn't?) but with matters regarding my bereavement they have really come though for me, and thus I've got a whole sequence of available days to get my eighth walking season going when I'd figured that it would be postponed until the start of March, after we've all reconvened in Leicester for Dad's memorial service on the 23rd February. So, now we can look forward to returning to the trail, having used the Monday of this week to travel into work to update my supervisors and colleagues on what's been going on these last couple of weeks, and to show my best brave face as we face an unknown future for the first time in a long time, and I can grind the mental gears to give 2019's walking season some sort of shape. I've certainly spent the off season preparing for it, having acquired new boots for my birthday, pair #7, which allows pair #6 to go into semi-retirement as my Leicestershire footwear (replacing the utterly ruined pair #5), usable during the inevitable breaks Down Country as I travel to visit My Mum and start the long process of clearing away so much stuff accumulated by My Dad over the years. I also acquired a bunch of fresh gear, getting two new jackets to replace the ones that have seen so many miles, including the one that I got off My Sister some 18 years ago, picking the new ones for low cost from TK Maxx and sending the old ones to the Christmas charity drive at St George's Crypt, Leeds's most notable homeless shelter. I've already told you about my sock acquisition exploits, now having ten pairs to go with both sets of boots, which will hopefully protect me from sole blistering grief in the coming season, and also got myself a new gillet and wicking vest, care of My Sister as a Christmas gift that will hopefully do as many years of service as their predecessors, with to only kit not getting added to being any new trousers, as my 2005 pair still endure against all the odds while newer pairs really start to show their age.

A Rumination on the Death of My Father

This image signifies everything.

In my concluding thoughts for 2018, I promised you all that the new walking season for 2019, my eighth, would start today, February 9th, but that has not come to pass, instead I am here, regretfully telling you that on the morning of Saturday 26th January, My Father, David Wren, died aged 77, after suffering a fall in the night, having endured the onset of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy over the last three years, which had gradually robbed him of his mental and physical capabilities. A shocking and sudden end to his protracted and undignified illness, which we had all anticipated for quite a while but still were not expect to arrive so swiftly, by My Mum's accounts he had been in a normal sort of fettle for much of his last week, but had grown increasing restless and irritable during his last few nights, moving about with a force and freedom that he was quite incapable of in his waking hours, regularly trying to get out of bed when he lacked the strength to do so when alert, and taking his ultimately fatal fall in the small hours of that Saturday morning. I'd been due to travel down to see My Parents on the 2nd February, and thus did not have my chance to see Dad for one last time after Christmas, but absorbing the news proved surprisingly easy, as I'd known that Dad had been in his last days since his first hospitalization in 2015 after suffering an intercranial haematoma, and became fully aware that he had a degenerative condition after his diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease 'Plus' in 2017. Apparently, the medical attendees who had assessed him over the preceding weeks had largely brought less than positive news, the occupation therapist having noted that while his muscle strength was still good, his motor skills were starting to fade badly, diminishing the fine control in his hands and rendering it difficult to negotiate the steps that gave access to the bedroom and out of the house, while the speech therapist noted that his chew and swallow responses were worsening and that he was starting to show signs of aphasia, with his brain starting to lose the ability to form words. All told, Dad's sudden death seems like a merciful release, as his continuing decline was looking like it would soon rob him of his ability to eat normally, communicate even slightly coherently and probably render him bed ridden, and coupled to My Mum being close to the end of her physical and emotional tether, his sudden end spared them both a long, lingering and undignified ordeal.

The Conclusions of 2018

Wrapping the 2018 Season 

at Morley Hole.

Another Walking Season has resolved, my seventh, and still doing this with such regularity is something that my 2012 self surely wouldn't have believed possible, and as 2018 passes into memory, we're all still here too, which would surprise my 2017 self just as much as it does me now, and with that thought still our heads we have to ponder the question that always comes to mind at this time of the year, What Have We Learned in 2018? As ever, the season has to be regarded as a whole, and the thought pondered, Was it a Success or Not? and as ever, the answer is a resounding yes, with the important qualification for next year being Don't Plan So Much as the itinerary that I walked though the year has ended up looking little like the list that I compiled back in February. That's just as much Don't Add So Much to Your Schedule as it is Spend A Lot Less Time Plotting, as both of them are issues that have come up during the 2018 season, as my plans for last year totalled more than ten bullet points, which was far more than needed as new plans arrived on my schedule as the season progressed while others got dropped and forgotten about. So despite best intentions, a six week tour in and around Malhamdale never got onto the schedule, and I never got close to doing anything around Bradford and the territories around, while the failure to do the Witton Weavers Way should come as no surprise at all, but on the other hand, I never had any intention to head into the Washburn valley until I became familiar with the Dalesbus timetable and so many other schemes ended up taking many more weekends than had been expected. Seven years in an I still seem to be surprised how few walking days I have in a season, really not many more than 40, and thus having a lot less time to utilise than I always anticipate, especially with a quarter of them being away from home, thus the planning is necessary to get the season off the ground, projecting the long walks for the high season, and plotting the logistics for holidays away, but otherwise, the plan needs to be to relax and just let the season take you where you fancy, not to spend your time trying to fit as many routes into far too few days annually.